2021 CSAT — Q41

Locate. This asks for the central idea: find the thesis the whole passage delivers. The passage: in a natural state nothing is good or bad “by common assent” because each man “consults only his own advantage”; “sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, which is decreed by common consent what is good or bad.” The hinge is that right/wrong is created by the civil state.

Test (thesis-vs-detail + scope-fit). The central idea is that conceptions of right and wrong arise because a state (civil state, by common consent) is formed. (a) states exactly that. Test the rivals: (b) swaps “common consent” for “a ruling authority” and over-claims about men being “morally right”; (c) calls man “inherently immoral,” but the passage’s point is that in the natural state there is no morality, so “immoral” misapplies; (d) imports species survival, never mentioned.

Eliminate by anatomy. (b) is half right, half wrong, and too strong for what the passage says — it captures “the state defines right/wrong” but distorts “common consent” into “a ruling authority” and adds the “no man morally right” flourish. (c) sounds reasonable, but is unsupported — “consults his own advantage” is self-interest in the absence of a moral standard, not proof of inherent immorality. (d) is not in the passage — survival of the species is foreign to the text. The transferable rule: the central idea restates the passage’s hinge in the passage’s own terms — here, right/wrong is born with the (consent-based) civil state. Key: (a).

“Sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, which is decreed by common consent what is good or bad, and each one holds himself responsible to the state.” — good/bad and sin come into being only with the civil state (the formation of a state by common consent); without it there is no common standard of right and wrong → (a). (b) substitutes “a ruling authority” for the passage’s “common consent” and over-claims about being “morally right”; (c) reads “consults his own advantage” as “inherently immoral,” when in the natural state there is no morality to be immoral against; (d) “necessary for survival of species” is out of scope.

The passage argues that in a natural state there is no common standard of good and bad (each pursues his own advantage); good/bad and sin exist only once a civil state is formed by common consent.

• (a) restates that: right/wrong exists due to the formation of a state. Correct.
• (b) replaces “common consent” with “a ruling authority” and over-claims “no man morally right.”
• (c) reads self-interest as “inherent immorality,” but there is no morality in the natural state.
• (d) invokes species survival, absent from the passage.

Answer: (a).

The trap is (b), which is nearly right — it grasps that right/wrong is tied to the state — but it mishandles the mechanism. The passage says the standard comes from “common consent,” a collective act, not from “a ruling authority” imposing it. On central-idea items in philosophical prose, an option that captures the conclusion but swaps the passage’s mechanism (consent → authority) is a half-true trap, not the central idea. (a) keeps both the conclusion and its consent-based mechanism intact.